Sen. Bernie Sanders said the bank failure was the "direct result" of the "absurd" bill, which couldn't have passed the Senate without Democratic help.
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In the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, a 2018 bill championed by Republicans and former President Donald Trump has received renewed scrutiny.
But the bill couldn't have passed the Senate — which requires 60 votes to pass most legislation — without the support of several Democrats.
The "Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act" was a package of banking reforms that weakened aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act, a series of new regulations instituted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
In particular, the legislation raised the threshold at which a bank is deemed "too big to fail" from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion, subjecting banks under that threshold to less regulatory scrutiny.
Silicon Valley Bank reported $212 billion in assets in the final months of 2022, placing it just under the higher threshold.
Progressives have since seized on the law as a key reason for the bank's failure.
"Let's be clear. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank is a direct result of an absurd 2018 bank deregulation bill signed by Donald Trump that I strongly opposed," said Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in a statement on Sunday.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts wrote in the New York Times that SVB's failure was "entirely avoidable," calling for the repeal of the "dangerous" 2018 legislation.
And at the time, she directly criticized her Democratic colleagues for their support of the bill, which she had dubbed the "Bank Lobbyist Act."
"This bill wouldn't be on the path to becoming law without the support of these Democrats," she wrote on Twitter at the time.
—Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 6, 2018
And fellow progressive Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California said on Monday that "too many" Democrats voted for the bill.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, among the 17 Democratic senators at the time who voted for the bill, has since defended his vote.
"I think it put in place an appropriate level of regulation on mid-sized banks," Warner said on ABC News on Sunday, adding "these mid-sized banks needed some regulatory relief."
After clearing the Senate in March 2018, the bill passed the House that May, when then-Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — now an independent member of the Senate Democratic caucus — joined 32 other Democrats in support. It was signed into law by Trump days later.
Since 2018, some of the Democrats who supported the bill have either retired or lost re-election. But those who remain are likely to face questions from the press and colleagues about the 2018 legislation in the coming weeks, particularly as progressives push to repeal it.
Here are the 13 members of the Senate Democratic caucus that supported the bill:
